Adirondack Canoe Waters: South and West Flow

Author: Alec C. Proskine

Review by: CHRISTOPHER ANGUS

Adirondack Canoe Waters: South and West Flow

Alec C. Proskine’s Adirondack Canoe Waters: South and West Flow, published in 1985, expands on Jamieson’s efforts, which had left three of the five Adirondack basins uncovered: the Black River Basin (West Flow) and the Mohawk and Upper Hudson Basins (South Flow).

Proskine’s book includes the potentially dangerous water of the Boreas, Hudson River Gorge, Lower and Bottom Moose and portions of the Sacandaga, East Canada Creek and Upper East Branch of Fish Creek. The latter, Proskine tells us, is “a great fishing stream and one of the most spectacular, though one of the lesser known, streams of the state.”With waters periodically gushing through 90- foot shale gorges, this Class 2 and 3 stream boasts 18 tumbling waterfalls. Once abounding with salmon and the Indians who speared them, it is still today a popular walleye and trout stream.

Given the paddling difficulty of many of these waterways, Proskine emphasizes safety, knowledge of the river and an awareness of one’s abilities: “I would bet ten-to-one every time on the skilled, knowledgeable canoeist going over an eighteen-foot waterfall safely against an inexperienced, unaware canoeist going down a little stream in high water in the spring.” The book’s maps and directions are unusually clear and easy to follow.